Ania Puczylowska: Brand Socialite and How to Rebrand

Our interview of Ania Puczylowska for “The Creative Influencer” podcast is available today for download on iTunes, Spotify, and premier platforms everywhere. Ania is the CEO of Brand Socialite, an experiential marketing agency that matches talent with brand campaigns.

Ania shares her journey from Poland at the fall of Communism to the United States without being able to speak any English to how she became a disrupter in the fast-changing industry of experiential marketing for some of the world’s most elite brands.

Ania also discusses the process of rebranding, including some of the hidden details such as choosing a name that identifies your value proposition to clients and customers and the process of creating a brand identity, including how to leverage social media—important considerations for influencers and other businesses alike.

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A transcript of the episode follows:

Jon Pfeiffer:
I am joined today by Ania. Welcome to the podcast.

Ania Puczylowska:
Thank you for having me. Really excited to be here.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Your company's Brand Socialite, correct?

Ania Puczylowska:
Yes, Brand Socialite.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Okay, can you tell me a little bit about Brand Socialite?

Ania Puczylowska:
Absolutely. Brand Socialite was born out of a pain point I saw in our industry. So, I've been in the experiential marketing world for over a decade working with luxury wines and spirits.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Let me interrupt you just a second. When you say experiential marketing, what do you mean?

Ania Puczylowska:
Experiential marketing is also known as consumer marketing, so the best way to describe it is we create experiences for our clients' consumers. So for instance, samplings at a liquor store that you've seen or at a nightclub, or when you go to Veuve Clicquot Polo. All of those, some people call it events, but it's more than that, right? So there's an ROI involved, there's KPIs and things like that.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Okay. Sorry, I interrupted you. So, your company sets those up?

Ania Puczylowska:
Yeah, so we had a partnership. Hennessy had a partnership with Canelo in Las Vegas, and sometimes these brands don't think of securing staff till maybe last minute, so I really wanted to develop a technology platform similar to a gig economy like Uber or Glamsquad. Oh, you've heard of those.

So, Brand Socialite was born during my MBA at UCLA Anderson. It was my thesis for my MBA. Basically right now we're still working on developing the actual technology for it, but we're operating as an agency that helps brands develop experiential marketing campaigns, sponsorships. That's why I'm actually here in Miami for Swim Week, and staffing with promotional models, bartenders, logistics, sommeliers, engravers. I mean, photographers, videographers, you name it.

Jon Pfeiffer:
What is Swim Week?

Ania Puczylowska:
So, it's like Fashion Week in New York. You've heard of that?

Jon Pfeiffer:
Yeah, yeah. Oh, I've heard of Swim Week too, I just want you to tell me what it is.

Ania Puczylowska:
Oh, I see, I see. So, Swim Week is basically a fashion show for all the swimsuits every year held in Miami. So, a lot of brands. My friend owns a swim company, like a swim attire company, and he has a show and he reached out to me and asked if I could potentially have any sponsors for his runway show. I just so happen to know people out here that work for Fortune 500 brands that were interested in participating.

Jon Pfeiffer:
What set you down this path? You said this was your graduate thesis for your MBA. Where did you get the idea?

Ania Puczylowska:
Well, I've done this for over a decade for someone else, right? So I started with an agency that was about six months old over a decade ago, and I helped that person build the agency from East Coast to West Coast, to then I've grown with the company as the company grew, so I decided that I want to launch my own company and do it better.

Jon Pfeiffer:
When did you launch your company?

Ania Puczylowska:
So I graduated from the executive MBA program in 2020 during the pandemic when it just started, so I launched the company during the program. I mean, it's a soft launch, I wouldn't say we were full-blown, and then we participated in some of the business plan competitions. Because we're experiential, because we're a in-person sort of marketing campaign, as soon as the pandemic happened, it was like, you're not going to make it, it's not going to happen, so you're not going to win any money from any of these business plan competitions kind of thing.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Well, I mean, just the story goes is that FedEx was developed as an MBA thesis as well, and they got a B, because the professor said that that would never work.

Ania Puczylowska:
I love it.

Jon Pfeiffer:
So, keep that in mind.

Ania Puczylowska:
I love it. Many stories like that for sure. One of our professors also shared some of his, you just don't see it when you don't understand it.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Right. So, you launch at probably the absolute worst time you could possibly do it. Not by choice, but that's just what happened.

Ania Puczylowska:
Correct.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Are you finding that the experience market is coming back?

Ania Puczylowska:
Oh, yes. My goodness, for sure. We are in June alone, our busiest month. We've done over 50 experiential marketing events between Northern California and Southern California alone, so that is a significant increase since post-pandemic, pre-pandemic, you know what I mean?

Jon Pfeiffer:
Right, yeah. Okay, so I want to take you through when you were deciding about your company, how you decided to brand it, and then I know for a different company you helped in a rebrand. I want to talk about first the branding, and then how if you don't do it right the first time and have to rebrand, how you go about that. So, let's start first with the branding. What steps did you follow to try to develop your brand?

Ania Puczylowska:
Yeah, so I mean, the name. The struggle with the name, how do you come up? We started with a completely different name, so this is a perfect ... we were called Event Slay. In grad school environments, people don't understand what slay means, 'cause it's more of a slang. So, it was an interesting way ... sorry, that is my dog. One second, please.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Sure, let me pause it. I have it paused. Okay, so we're back.

Ania Puczylowska:
Okay, so go ahead.

Jon Pfeiffer:
It was Event Slay.

Ania Puczylowska:
Event Slay was the first name, and people didn't understand it, it wasn't ... So you come up with a name, you got to come up with a list of names and then kind of run it by people and see what the response is. It's testing it out. Ultimately, if we want to be a technology platform, we will need to rebrand, from Brand Socialite is way too long.

I mean, look at any of the technology platforms, four letters, Uber. Four to five letters, they teach you that. Short, sweet, to the point. Uber we didn't understand what it meant when it came out, 'cause it's a foreign word. So, ultimately we will have to go through a branding.

So you come up with a name, you have to check whether the domain is available on websites, on social media platforms. If it isn't, then you better come up with something else, right? Then if it is, then claim it as soon as you can. I mean, I think the first one, the Event Slay, I bought .org, .net. I mean, I bought all of those endings, because why not? Why not?

Jon Pfeiffer:
I also tell my clients to buy the misspellings of it too.

Ania Puczylowska:
Oh, that's a good idea. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

Jon Pfeiffer:
With the last name of Pfeiffer, you have to do that.

Ania Puczylowska:
Totally. That's true, that's fair, right?

Jon Pfeiffer:
Yeah.

Ania Puczylowska:
Then you've got to come up with your color schemes, your fonts. I mean, think of Nike. Nike went from Nike to just a swoosh. So when you're building a company, you're building an image and you got to really stick to it. Whether it's five colors or four colors, whether it's two or three fonts that you select, you create a logo.

I had a classmate create our logo on Canva, that's when Canva was just kind of exploding. So, it's really like you got to think things through, what resonates, what works. I always tell people, when you look at your apps on your phone, majority of the colors are blue. Majority of the apps look blue as a color, so there's a psychology behind even the colors that you choose for your branding. So, there's a lot of research to be done in that realm.

So yeah, we had to do some of that. Then developing a website and what does that look like? What do you say there? Make sure you don't utilize photos that you don't have rights to, 'cause you're going to get in trouble for it. As you know, I kind of had a conversation with you about it. Even though we own the photo, there is websites out there that will scrub the net and potentially accuse you of infringement, so you have to be really careful how you position yourself within even the digital space, right?

Jon Pfeiffer:
Right.

Ania Puczylowska:
Then you develop a strategy for your social media, for any kind of marketing thing that you're trying to do. You definitely got to utilize your analytics, and it's always a learning and evolving process. You got to develop the baseline with your logos, your colors, your message. What's your slogan? What you want to be known as? Just do it. Look at Nike, just do it. I mean, those are simple examples. What does that look like?

Jon Pfeiffer:
Then how much testing and changing and watching the analytics do you use before you finally settle in on this is going to be what we're going to use?

Ania Puczylowska:
I mean, just like when you put together a PowerPoint for any presentation, you can fiddle with it forever, because you can be super perfectionist and perfect. I had a professor who was like, "Just launch it. Just do it and work through it and figure it out." Until you start doing it, you really don't know what's working, so don't make it perfect, just make it and start working with it and start analyzing it and improving it.

My business plan and my pitch deck is very different now than what it was in grad school, right? I mean, it's just going to happen. The same thing with your company and your branding, same thing you look at the big brands. I mean, Facebook through Meta, I mean, look at the changes that they're making.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Right. Even with Facebook and Meta, there's still a lot of people, if you said Meta to, they would like, "Huh?"

Ania Puczylowska:
Right, exactly.

Jon Pfeiffer:
How much in grad school do they talk about digital marketing? Is that a focus now?

Ania Puczylowska:
So, there is courses you could take where it's very analytical. There's how to create a Google ad. What do you need for the keywords and the ranking, and how does all that work? So there's electives you can take, that is not part of the basic curriculum, but there is courses that if you're interested in ... actually, I'm trying to sign up for a summer course at UCLA right now for exactly that, because it evolves so much. I feel like I'm already behind and I'm three years out of school.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Yeah.

Ania Puczylowska:
Even with social media, I mean, look at Threads. Threads launched what, yesterday or two days ago? If you're not in it, and if you're not constantly teaching yourself and figuring out how to evolve with what's happening, then you're behind.

Jon Pfeiffer:
I was reading about Threads that they're tying it to the Instagram account, that if you decide you don't want Threads anymore, you have to delete your Instagram account.

Ania Puczylowska:
I did not realize that. I mean, I signed up for Threads yesterday.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Yeah.

Ania Puczylowska:
It's really easy, 'cause they ... and that's what's winning. They just transfer all your stuff from Instagram into another platform, and you get the same name, so you can claim your name and that is part of branding. Same with your emails, even if it's your Gmail, Brand Socialite, and that wasn't available, so we had to add inc@gmail.com later for your Google issues. So, claim your names on all this. Whether you use them or not, own those names on Twitter and TikTok and Threads, and just own your own name wherever there's an opportunity.

Jon Pfeiffer:
I tell clients that too, and they're like, "Well, I'm not going to be on Snapchat." I said, "Maybe not, but you don't want somebody else using your name on the platform."

Ania Puczylowska:
Correct, correct. 100%, 100%.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Yeah. Okay, let's say you've launched and you realize, "Uh-oh, I have to rebrand."

Ania Puczylowska:
Yeah.

Jon Pfeiffer:
First, when do you know that you have to rebrand?

Ania Puczylowska:
Well, there's different variations to that, right? So the company that you were mentioning that I helped to rebrand, they had an issue with being called different things on different platforms, so that's a rebranding alignment almost for them. So you can't be one name on one platform, another name on another platform, another name on Google, another name on this, people know you by that. It's just like, whoa.

Then your description, even on LinkedIn or on your Facebook, that should match. I shouldn't go to one platform and it says completely something different. Then I'm as a customer, a client, a potential client, potential an employee or anyone, you get confused. So, what are you? Are you a trade show company? Are you a experiential marketing? What are you? Because that confuses your audience. So-

Jon Pfeiffer:
Yeah. Which back to your original point of make sure you get all the names on all the platforms consistent when you start.

Ania Puczylowska:
Correct. But you see, they started as one thing and then being in business for 20 years, other things. Facebook maybe wasn't back then or LinkedIn wasn't as popular. As that progressed, they just had created accounts and didn't really think of let's keep the name consistent, right?

So, you walk into a company like that, and to me, this is an easy solve, because that's what I do. So, it's like, okay, let's kind of align. Let's come up with what our bio looks like. Women-owned, award-winning, experiential, and then let's consistently put that in all of our platforms or make a shorter version of it, or whatever it is. So to me, that's an easy thing.

We had to change the logo from the original name to now what we're aligning. First, it was associated with somebody's name. I don't recommend people name their companies after their name, simply because people know who you are. So let's just say you want to sell the company, let's just say you want to step away as a CEO, and then your name is still stuck to it. What if you start getting bad reviews? Then your name is being bashed in the reviews. So, stay away from naming the company after your own name. [inaudible]

Jon Pfeiffer:
I read an article about Neiman Marcus, that Neiman got divorced, so he was completely away from the company, but Marcus was still there, but they just kept the name. They just kept the name.

Ania Puczylowska:
Yeah, so I mean, I'm big on you want to have privacy as a person. At some point the company's going to get so big, that then it's going to either get dragged to mud or something bad happens, and then you don't want your name associated with it, 'cause then that kind of associates with it. That's just my preference and that's what I will always tell clients to do. Just come up with something cool, something catchy.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Okay, so you're helping somebody rebrand, and one of the first things it sounds like you do is you make sure all the names are in alignment and the messaging is in alignment.

Ania Puczylowska:
The colors are in alignment.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Do you recommend the same fonts, the same colors across all platforms?

Ania Puczylowska:
Yep, it's scrubbing. You're scrubbing everything. So, create brand guidelines. What are your brand guidelines? I think that's the foundation of your branding. Brand guidelines will tell you your fonts, your colors, your logos, maybe different variations of logos, black versus white versus transparent. Devil's in the detail. All those little details really, really matter, so develop brand guidelines. So, the minute I work with a client like that, I said, "Show me your brand guidelines."

Jon Pfeiffer:
I'm sure the response was, "What?"

Ania Puczylowska:
No, they had some, but it was quite old documents, that it's like ... and even the hex numbers for ... you need your hex number for Canva or anywhere that you're working with anything, those were wrong. They were typed in wrong, there was typos in those. I'm like, "Why does this green doesn't match this green?" Even those little things really, really matter. Make sure that there's no typos in your hex colors, or even your fonts or anything like that.

Jon Pfeiffer:
So, a company comes to you and says, "Ania, I need help. We need help rebranding." How long does this process take?

Ania Puczylowska:
It really varies on how long that person ... So if you put together let's say a guideline of questions, if they don't have brand guidelines, you have to help them develop those. I can work as fast as I can, but if that person's dragging their feet ... and I tried to help a friend, I try to put that on the client, but if you take two weeks or three weeks to respond to emails or you're not getting on phone calls, then that process can take years. You know what I mean?

But if this is really important to you, we will work really fast to make sure ... because it's such an instant gratification when you're working on these things, that it's really satisfying to see when you're seeing these changes implemented right away in their websites and their colors and their social media channels, there's a gratification about it, right? We are basically all about the instant gratification these days, you know that. We love to be like right now, right now. So I mean, three months maybe. I mean, it depends on how fast you're moving.

Jon Pfeiffer:
How much do you advise your clients to look at their competitors?

Ania Puczylowska:
All the time. I mean, I am like, "Look at what these guys are doing, we need to do something similar or different," or it varies on where we're going with it, right? But I think part of what I call a brand audit is, and I did this, you take screenshots of everything this person has now, it's kind of like a case study, and then you do what their competitors are doing and how they're doing it, and then let's figure out what you want to do based on these two different comparison. We'll come up with a third one and this will be your way of going about it.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Yeah.

Ania Puczylowska:
I mean, I love looking at competitors, because either they're longer in business or they have clients that have accelerate their growth in some way, or they're using technology that you haven't even thought of using. The company I was advising has never used Canva. I feel like, because sometimes it's the baby boomers, older generations, that they're not keeping up with the newest technology, and not even the people that they hire are keeping up with it. So, bringing even new technology to the table and showing people that you could do things without major, major investments just by using a technology is really, really interesting.

Jon Pfeiffer:
How do you keep up with what's going on in the industry?

Ania Puczylowska:
Good question. I am on social media a lot. I follow a lot of different [accounts], whether it's creator accounts, whether it's the head of Instagram I follow to see the newest, latest products that they're launching. So, really being in touch with the community and following and absorbing it like a sponge.

You have to be into it, you can't just ... I have clients who hate being on Instagram or hate being on social, and we kind of help them with their social media strategy, but they don't like it, so they don't know about the newest thing. So, you have to enjoy it.

I also subscribe to newsletters and articles that they send out, some of them are daily from certain sources. So, it depends on where the interest lies or what projects we're working on. I also like to keep tabs on competitors. What are they doing? How much are they paying? What's going on with that? That's important.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Yeah. So, I want to go back to the head of Instagram. Who do you follow to get your Instagram tips?

Ania Puczylowska:
I don't want to butcher his name, Adam Mosseri. I think so. So he's the head of Instagram, he has his own subscription channel on Instagram that is only for his subscribers. He goes on Instagram Stories on Fridays and send me questions, and he answers those questions on the Friday.

Then he also does stuff in subscription channel where he takes polls, and he announced Threads and all that stuff, and he's talking about how many people ... It's so important to be part of that, but sometimes it's hard to follow people that you should follow, because you don't necessarily agree with their beliefs or how they do business, but you still got to stay on top of that, right?

Jon Pfeiffer:
No. I mean, I'm a junkie when it comes to following people and doing that, and sometimes it's just like, oh man, too many emails to look at-

Ania Puczylowska:
That's true.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Too many posts to look at.

Ania Puczylowska:
It's true.

Jon Pfeiffer:
So, what are you working on right now? What are your current projects?

Ania Puczylowska:
So, we have a really large client that everyone probably knows and we're doing their experiential campaigns in Northern California. Now because we did such a good job in Northern California, we're going to be helping them. There is a surfing competition in Huntington Beach, so we're going to be helping them with experiential marketing campaigns there.

As I mentioned, Swim Week, I'm helping a friend with a sponsorship deal. We're helping a client with social media strategy. She is an executive within the wines and spirits industry, but also an artist and an author on the side, and she's launching her children's book and she needs help with her social media, so we're working on that.

We have a whiskey from Australia that we're helping them. They're launching their products in Whole Foods in the next few months, so we're trying to help them with that campaign, and certificate of insurance, all the fun stuff that comes with-

Jon Pfeiffer:
Tell them to have a tasting in Malibu.

Ania Puczylowska:
We'll be glad to invite you to a tasting in Malibu.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Okay, [inaudible]

Ania Puczylowska:
You're a whiskey fan?

Jon Pfeiffer:
Yes, yes.

Ania Puczylowska:
It's an interesting product, because they age their whiskey in red wine barrels in Australia, so the taste is very specific, but it's New World Whisky, as they call it. It's amazing. It's funny, it's somebody that I used to work with long time ago that now works on the brand in the US, and they reached out to us, and, "Can you help us with this program and launching this brand and sort of executing these things?" So yeah, we're working on that.

Jon Pfeiffer:
So, last question for you. Where can people find you on the internet?

Ania Puczylowska:
So, brandsocialite.com is our website, Brand Socialite is our Instagram, our Twitter. My personal account, should I give that?

Jon Pfeiffer:
No, probably just the company account, unless you want to.

Ania Puczylowska:
Yeah, okay. Yeah, so just Brand Socialite on all the social media channels and brandsocialite.com is our website.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Thank you very much. I'll be right back.

Ania Puczylowska:
Thank you.